http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_MarieRené Marie (born René Marie Stevens on November 7, 1955 in Warrenton, Virginia) is a songwriter and jazz vocalist. She began her professional music career at age 42.[1] In 1999, she performed at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. and signed a contract with the St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ label.[2] She released four albums on the label, the second of which (Vertigo) was awarded a coronet ranking by The Penguin Guide to Jazz, a distinction given to less than 85 other recordings in jazz history.[3] In her work, the singer often combines contrasting songs ("Dixie" and the anti-lynching "Strange Fruit" on Vertigo) or combines other works (Ravel's Boléro and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" on Live at Jazz Standard.)

The track list on René Marie's latest release reads like an iPod in random shuffle mode gone haywire: a Temptations classic is followed by a Jefferson Airplane classic, which is followed by Dobie Gray's hit "Drift Away." There's Dave Brubeck's "Strange Meadow Lark" and the American folk standards "John Henry" and "O Shenandoah," and a sensuous Latin ballad, "Angelitos Negros." The rest of the program makes for no less incongruous a list, but René Marie's gift is that she wraps each song around her dynamic, smoky, malleable, experienced voice until it feels as if she's written it. (Her next album will consist solely of her own compositions.) Marie is a latecomer to performing; now in her fifties, she's only been recording for about 15 years. Perhaps because she took so long to get started, she's had time to develop a personalized style without falling prey to outside influences. Fronting a tight, supple jazz combo, Marie is down to earth, full of surprises, and clever in her approach to a song. The Airplane's "White Rabbit" is rendered in a simultaneously dreamy and intense fashion: Marie, after building up to her first crescendo, lays back, turns things over to the pianist, waits it out till it's become frenzied, and only then returns to drive it home. A medley of Jimmy Van Heusen's "Imagination" and the Temps' "Just My Imagination" makes more sense in Marie's hands than on paper: the first is a whispery, breathy voice and sullen piano; a seamless segue and then the second song, which is soulful, free, tough, and fun. The eclecticism isn't for its own sake, though, Marie gives no impression that she's jumping all over the place to be hip. So when she closes it out with what she dubs "Voice of My Beautiful Country Suite," a six-part medley that runs the gamut from "America the Beautiful" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee" to "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" and the "Star Spangled Banner" -- with drum and bluesy piano solos tossed in -- it all still makes perfect sense.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly Realized Concept Album July 21, 2011By Eddie BeanFormat:Audio CD|Amazon Verified PurchaseIt's all here. Great songs, original readings, unbelievably gorgeous/bluesy/soulful/funky singing and an idea both big and subtle to tie it all together. I hear all of these songs as a meditation on the complex feelings a person can have for this great but seriously flawed country. The "Voice of My Beautiful Country Suite" is the slightly more direct part, but I think the first half of the recording is at least as interesting as an expression and exploration of the American experiment and not just a collection of terrific American songs.

"White Rabbit" isn't just a snapshot of the druggie sixties, it's an analog for a maddening and conflicting political system. "Just My Imagination" isn't just the hippest jazzy take on a timeless Motown tune, it's really a song of longing for Dr. King's still unrealized dream. You get the idea.

Rene Marie's singing is both as smooth as Peggy Lee and as gritty and soulful as Ray Charles. On this, her best album, she's certainly the voice of my beautiful country.

p.s. - DO NOT miss an opportunity to see her live. Fantastic.Comment | Was this review helpful to you?4 of 4 people found the following review helpful4.0 out of 5 stars Unique Take on Patriotic Standards June 5, 2011By KennethFormat:Audio CD|Amazon Verified PurchaseTo be fair, I must disclose that I am a fan of ReneMarie; therefore, my comments may be somewhat biased. That being said, this particular CD, although not my favorite among her works, as usual, I found the material interesting, a unique take on some American standards, most particularly the juxtapositioning of "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" and the tune of "Star Spangled Banner." I am constantly surprised by the range of her work; each CD seems to take a different track, from jazz standards to blues to her own compositions, and many places in between. I have seen her in concert several times, and find the same to be true there.Comment |

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René Marie, the award winning singer whose style incorporates elements of jazz, soul, blues and gospel, has quickly become a heroine to many; a woman of great strength exuding stamina and compassion; often explaining how finding her voice and self through singing gave her the courage to leave an abusive marriage. But since the release of her recording debut, Renaissance, this Colorado based heroine has also evolved into one of the greatest and most sensuous vocalists of our time. Unmistakably honest and unpretentious while transforming audiences worldwide with her powerful interpretations, electrifying deliveries and impassioned vocals - René Marie has drawn a legion of fans and music critics who find themselves not only entertained, but encouraged and even changed by her performances.

With her latest release Voice of My Beautiful Country (Motema Music), listeners will hear her trademark vocals but will also be struck by the wide variety of songs that she interprets. During the course of the album, Marie brings her personal touch to everything from Motown to Tin Pan Alley to “America the Beautiful.” But Voice of My Beautiful Country is much more than a demonstration of Marie’s eclectic musical tastes; it is an ambitious celebration of Americana and the cultural diversity of these United States.

Although most of Voice of My Beautiful Country is performed in English, Marie sings in Spanish on the Latin standard “Angelitos Negros,” After falling in love with Roberta Flack’s version of "Angelitos Negros" when she was a teenager, Marie included the song to acknowledge the importance of Hispanic culture as a basic building block of America.

It is hard to believe that Marie didn’t sing professionally until after she turned 40. But in fact, the Virginia native, married at 18, mother of two by 23 and a member of a strict religious group with her then husband only occasionally sang in public while she was focused on raising a family. It was in 1996 that Marie’s eldest son Michael urged her to take the plunge to pursue a career. “He told me that was exactly what I needed to do” she explains. Two years later following an ultimatum by her husband to either stop singing or leave their home, she chose to leave after 23 years of marriage.

What followed was a whirlwind of success and great critical acclaim rarely seen in the jazz world, from The LA Times to the Washington Post, from the Miami Herald to the Chicago Tribune. She has received several awards throughout her career including Best International Jazz Vocal CD (besting Cassandra Wilson and Joni Mitchell) by the Academie Du Jazz (Paris, France) and has graced the Billboard Charts multiple times propelling her to headliner status at major festivals in the US & abroad including the prestigious Women In Jazz festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC, the Edinburgh Jazz Festival (Scotland) Shanghai Jazz Festival (China) among many others.

In 2007 René Marie released Experiment in Truth as well as the single “This Is (Not) A Protest Song,” a fund-raiser for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. And in 2009 she released the sound track for her touring one-woman play, Slut Energy Theory (which follows the protagonist U’Dean Morgan, on a journey from sexual abuse to self esteem, imparting some very down home and hilarious wisdom along the way). Marie also released a digital single, “Three Nooses Hanging,” which musically embodied her shock and reaction to the Jena Six case in Louisiana.

Almost 15 years after the debut of Renaissance, René Marie’s creativity, boldness and exuberance take hold on Voice of My Beautiful Country. Documenting material that Marie has been performing to great effect for several years, it also follows up a nationally publicized incident where Marie was invited to sing The Star Spangled Banner in Denver at the Mayor’s State of the City address. Instead Marie sang the lyrics to ‘Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” with the melody of the Star Spangled Banner. The event touched off a firestorm of press and right wing criticism, and even death threats.

Often used to describe the classic Tin Pan Alley songs that Gershwin, Porter, Berlin and others composed during the first half of the 20th Century, The Great American Songbook for Marie also includes jazz, R&B, gospel, folk, rock and the blues — with her “Imagination Medley” she unites Tin Pan Alley, Motor City soul and rock by marrying Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Imagination” and Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong’s “Just My Imagination” (a major hit for the Temptations in 1971 that was also covered by the Rolling Stones in 1978). Marie celebrates other aspects of Americana with interpretations of material that range from Dave Brubeck’s jazz jaunt, “Strange Meadow Lark” to the Dobie Gray hit “Drift Away” (a soul/soft rock favorite from the early 1970s) to the traditional folk standards “John Henry” and an anthemic version of “O Shenandoah.”

One of the most intriguing choices on Voice of My Beautiful Country is Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic rock favorite “White Rabbit,” which was inspired by the drug counterculture of the late 1960s. Marie notes: “I picked Jefferson Airplane because of the affection that Americans have for mind-altering substances—not that it’s unique to this country, but it is an American personality trait. When I perform ‘White Rabbit’ live, I don’t like to tell audiences what we’re getting ready to do. I just like to see the expressions on their faces when they realize that we’re doing ‘White Rabbit.’”

The center and title piece of the album is Marie’s extraordinary Voice of My Beautiful Country Suite, an ambitious jazz and soul tinged medley of the patriotic anthems “America the Beautiful,” “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” On “America the Beautiful” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” Marie takes a radical departure by performing these exalted lyrics, familiar to us all, over fresh melodies that she has composed and over which she improvises. “The whole idea was to take the most popular forms of American music—jazz, blues and gospel—and use it to underscore the power and universality of these lyrics,” Marie points out. “I love the original melodies for ‘America the Beautiful’ and ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’; my eyes get teary when I hear them, but there is another emotion altogether that gets touched when I sing over these new melodies, and I have found that audiences really get moved by bringing this new context, this new way to love our country.”